Festival Preview: Green Man 2016

Green Man 2016

Green Man festival has of course been on our radar for some time but we have never been. Roll on 2016 and we are thrilled to be heading to, what will be our first Welsh festival. With an enviable line up to include Laura Marling, Warpaint, Wild Beasts and a host of new bands to boot this is a festival which includes plenty of acts not on any of the festivals we have covered so far this year, the festival claims to provide “spellbinding” music for their beautiful setting and they’re in no way falling short on that.

As always it’s the new bands that we’ll be focusing on so check out a few of our picks of new to us and hopefully new to you acts that we’re planning on checking out next weekend at Green Man.

ONES TO WATCH

FRIDAY

Palace Winter

With a rhythmic pattern that is as captivating as it is beautiful Palace Winter’s H.W Running was one of the first songs of theirs that really caught out attention. We’ve not managed to see them live yet as they’ve only had a handful of UK dates so far but we’re feeling sure that we won’t be left feeling disappointed.

Listen to H.W Running here:

Oh Sister

One of the reasons we love festivals is that it gives us an opportunity to make even more new discoveries and Sarah Berresford, aka Oh Sister, is one of them. There may well not be anything more recent than a year old on her Soundcloud page but that hasn’t deterred us. Melancholy dripping from her soothing vocal and sweet delivery it was pretty much love on first listen. Can’t wait to see how this translates into a live set.

Listen to For The Dales here:

SATURDAY

Ardyn

You may well be spotting a theme with these picks, we’ve not seen any of them live yet and while they have been on the peripherals of our radar we’ve not featured them either. So it’s great that attending Green Man is giving us this opportunity to check them out and to let you know how great we think they are. Ardyn is an act that most definitely fits into this category and further cements the festival’s wish to provide music which is spell bounding.

Listen to The Valley here:

I See Rivers

Liverpool’s I See Rivers are a band who I am reminded about daily – because their name is on a poster I have framed in my home – despite this I’ve never actually seen them live – I was late for that show. I also missed them at LIMF and this is time to rectify it – please don’t let this be us jinxing it. There’s no other way to describe their harmonies other than arresting. I can’t concentrate on anything else when I listen to them.

Listen to Loved Ones here:

Hers

OK so another Liverpool band – honestly this wasn’t intentional. This time it’s a band we have featured – so of course we had to make sure we pushed them again – we tried to see Her’s earlier this year at a city festival but they either got moved or didn’t show – never did find out. Hoping this time we’ll catch them and enjoy this hazy, swirly, 80s indie-inspired goodness and see what more they have to offer. See you there yeah?

Listen to Dorothy here:

SUNDAY

Amber Arcades

Netherland’s Amber Arcades not only has a very cool name but she also makes music which is too cool for school – full of effortless, dark, twinkling shoegaze I can but imagine her live set will no doubt set a high standard, and all those prestigious media accolades are going to have to give her something to live up to. I’m going to be learning all the words so to sing along – I want to be in the cool gang!

Listen to Right Now here:

Matt Maltese

Describing his music as “cling film piano music” comes the quirky Matt Maltese. It’s not really his music that s quirky, but a flick through his Facebook page shows the man has a good sense of humour – which we’re hoping he’ll bring to Green Man as some enjoyable stage banter between his very solemn and very beautiful, vintage sounding music – a vocal style which feels reminiscent of a golden era of music – which most definetly wouldn’t be called cling film piano music.